Publications

The unification and nurturing environment of a family is something that cannot be artificially manufactured or replicated. Children are a gift from God, but what happens when the parental relationship is convoluted by multiple parental roles and contractual obligations? In the case of surrogacy, the foundation of family values are often traded out for financial transactions and turning human life into a commodity.

Earlier this week, close to 100 Catholic Advocacy Day delegates – representing the dioceses of California - gathered in Sacramento for prayer, legislative briefings and meetings with lawmakers to discuss bills benefiting our precious children. Their full reports on the visit will be available soon.

Oftentimes, we define success by how much money we make or how many luxuries we acquire. When you think about it, however, true success isn't about money or things. It's about our health. It's about our community. It's about our kids.

San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood, where the city began in 1776 with the founding of Mission Dolores, today is a dense mix of people.

Affluent techies, long-time Mission residents, undocumented immigrants and even homeless people in tents can all be found living in a single block.

In that environment undocumented migrants feel especially pressured, and some landlords seem to be taking advantage of them to raise rents or push them out. The migrants fear being reported and deported, so they feel extremely vulnerable to landlord threats, real or perceived, to raise rents or threaten eviction.

Taxes. They come each year with precise predictability, yet are met by many with angst and foreboding. The fear of having to pay an unexpectedly large tax bill or for tax preparation services can be budget crushing, especially for low-income wage earners and others who constantly face financial hardships.

In an odd and unexplained rule change proposal, California may ban chaplains from meeting with death row prisoners nearer than three hours before their scheduled execution.

The California Department of Corrections (CDCR) is engaged in a detailed revision of its procedures for ending the lives of prisoners sentenced to death. The elaborate set of rules specifies in minute detail death drug formulation, testing, staff training and numerous other aspects of executions.

The Catholic Charities statewide network of agencies has received $825,400 in additional funds from The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) to provide immigration legal services to immigrants across the state. The additional funding will be used to provide no-cost legal representation for 1,138 low-income immigrants.

This award increases the Network’s total funding for the 2016-2017 fiscal year to $5,961,750—the single largest award under the CDSS Immigration Services program in 2016-2017. Funding will be used to provide legal representation to immigrants for DACA, Naturalization, and other affirmative legal remedies.

The California Catholic Conference of Bishops released this statement earlier this week:

Today marks the beginning of the Lenten Season, a time when Christian people devote ourselves more intentionally to the spiritual and corporal works of mercy in an earnest effort to reform our lives in the image of Jesus Christ. We use this occasion to call upon Catholics and all people of good will in California and throughout the United States to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable and excluded in our society.

With February being Black History Month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has recognized four individuals of African decent who are on the road to sainthood.

The article, found here, profiles Venerable Pierre Toussaint. A hairdresser of high society women, Toussaint became very wealthy but used his wealth to shelter orphans, refugees and other street people. He founded one of New York’s first orphanages and raised money for the city’s first cathedral.

Several U.S. Catholic Bishops publically vocalized their disapproval and disappointment this week in President Trump’s new Executive Order restricting the flow of travelers and refugees into the United States for 90 to 120 days.

Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Diocese of Los Angeles released a statement lamenting the new policies.

“The first thing to say is that these executive orders seem like they were put together too fast. Not enough thought seems to have been given to their legality or to explaining their rationale or to considering the practical consequences for millions of people here and across the globe,” Gomez wrote.